enough that his love is declared to us, and that by faith we apprehend it when
CHAPTER 2: Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit and Those Who Mourn
enough that his love is declared to us, and that by faith we apprehend it when we have to leave this world. So then let us walk, and finish our course, until the opportune time has come, when he brings his promises to fulfillment. It is true that in this world God still spares us so far, that he will make us taste a part of his goodness, and that he will give us something to rejoice in: but these consolations are brief: we must not rest satisfied with them. We must therefore always return to this point, that although God has pity on our infirmity, and that for this reason he does not treat us so harshly, but that he even nourishes us, and that he gives us more than nature still requires: how much, I say, let it be, if it is nevertheless that there are so many afflictions and miseries mixed among it, that we always have regrets, and that we will say, I am a wretched man: until we have learned to come straight to him. And for the rest, it teaches the same thing in the following sentence. For these are not different things: but it is good for us that this is reiterated to us, as though it were being chewed for us (by way of saying) so that we could swallow it more easily. Because it is a very doctrine difficult to digest, as everyone experiences in themselves.
And yet he says, that blessed are those who mourn, and that in the end they will rejoice, and will be consoled. He shows us the like that we already have. For if we are poor in spirit, we must also weep: that is to say, we must be distressed. For we are not without feeling, like those visionaries of whom I spoke, who would like man to show such constancy, as if he were an anvil or some rock. Now all these things are contrary to our nature: but we must feel our miseries, and they must bring us so low, so that we are broken and crushed, that we cannot lift our heads, that we cannot breathe (so to speak) that we are like poor people dying. This is why our Lord Jesus Christ here combines weeping with poverty of spirit. As if he were to say, When I say that your happiness is not diminished, although you are oppressed by many afflictions, it is not that I mean that you resist with such stupidity that you feel nothing, that you are there like blocks of wood without being moved by anything: no. You will cry (he says) you will feel the privation, the reproach, the illnesses, and everything that will make you languish in the world. You will feel it, and will be wounded to the heart, so much so that you will cry. But whatever happens, that will not prevent you from remaining blessed. And why? We must come to this conclusion: Wait for consolation from above. So it is not said that by weeping we are blessed because of our virtue, and that those who make tears come out of our eyes are tyrants, and wicked men who do us wrong. This is not to say that we should remain shut up within ourselves: that would be a very poor blessedness: